Once A Pirate
by Star Vortex
Summary: Because while the realities of living with Killian were worth every moment she had fought for it, there were still some realities to living with a pirate that she hadn't expected. Some shameless fluff, to raise the spirits of the CS shipper in dark times. Post-s5, minimal spoilers.
1. Cannons

Because after the hell us CS shippers have gone through in 5A, I need a bit of fluff and humor. Minimal spoilers, although I'd suggest you to at least get to 4x22 before reading this. After Dark Swan, after the Underworld, after whatever awaits them in the future, Killian and Emma finally manage to stake their claim on that house by the water, although moving into a new home is never an easy ride. "Happily Ever After" takes time to build, and in the case of pirates, old habits die hard. This will mostly be a collection of one-shots that are vaguely tied together by timeline, in that they are all in the same world and happen one after the other, but there won't be a real overarching story. I won't be updating regularly, as I can't predict when I'll have an idea for a new chapter, but I hope you guys enjoy nonetheless!

* * *

In hindsight, Emma realized that her decision to move in with Killian might have benefited from a little more forethought.

It wasn't that she _regretted_ the decision, not at all; living close to him was surreal, in the best way she could have hoped for––waking up every morning and him being _right there_ , healthy and breathing and bed-headed and _hers._ Every day was a reaffirmation that they were alive and well and that they were together, and that the world hadn't managed to tear them apart tonight, and then once there was no more time to silently (or not so silently) revel in one another's presence the two would haul themselves out of bed and get to work defending Storybrooke, because God forbid that an isolated town in Maine should have more than one week without a world-threatening disaster. And once the monster of the week was vaporized or hugged into seeing the error of their evil ways, the pair would do their best to work on the daunting task of moving into their new (not so new) house.

Because while the realities of living with _Killian_ were warm and comforting and worth every moment she had fought for them, there were still some unexpected realities to living with a (kind of) reformed pirate.

Their first day had been spent gathering the bare essentials––food, bedding, toilet paper, all the things that would get them through the night, because the sun went down like clockwork and then they were too distracted with each other to get anything done. And then morning came and Emma got to wake up with her arms around him and realize all over again that he was _alive_ and he was with her. And when she reassured him why her tears were tears of happiness, he grinned and said he would prove to her just how alive he really was; they left the house twenty minutes late, but she couldn't find it in herself to be irritated at him for the delay.

The second day was about their personal things. Emma was surprised to see him bring nearly as few items as she had; she first came to Storybrooke with no more than two boxes piled up with all her worldly possessions, and she hadn't hoarded anything new since then. And as for Killian, it was apparently maritime custom for a sailor to have only as many personal effects as could be stored in a single trunk. He simply brought it inside, carried it up the stairs and set it down unceremoniously against the wall, right next to his side of the dresser, not even bothering to unpack it; he informed her that he already knew where everything was inside it and that no, Swan, just because he was a criminal didn't mean he couldn't be organized, and he didn't have time to unpack right now because he had to go downstairs and take that horse tethered in their front yard back to its original owner since the horse wasn't _exactly_ his. "It's not theft if he owner never finds out it was gone in the first place."

Emma couldn't resist opening the trunk once he was gone. The first thing she found was a shiny roll of black leather and metal that, upon being opened, revealed itself as Killian's coat––his old one, the one that reached down to his knees with metal buckles and latches and _holy crap,_ it had to weigh at least fifty pounds! No wonder Killian was so muscular; if she'd captained a ship with _this_ hanging off her for three hundred years, she'd probably be like the freaking Hulk by now. And just because she was feeling mischievous, or perhaps she wanted to know what it felt like, or perhaps she just wanted to pretend she was the Hulk for a bit, she slipped the coat on before continuing to look through the trunk.

Underneath the jacket were Killian's old clothes, which consisted of exactly two black shirts, two pairs of black leather pants and two vests––and for variety's sake, one of the vests even had red on it. Emma was left utterly unsurprised.

He also had an extra pair of boots, a collection of knives of various shapes and sizes, coiled rope, brass navigational tools and a smaller box the size of her head that she didn't touch; she got the sense that the box was a bit more private than clothes and knives, and she didn't want to go deeper without Killian's knowledge.

"That coat looks good on you, love." He was back from his "borrowing," leaning casually against the doorframe of their bedroom, grinning ear to ear at the sight of her, in his jacket, looking through his things.

She turned beet red and tried to talk her way out of it, which just amused him more and made him watch her in silence as she dug herself deeper and deeper with every word until she realized he was teasing her and sat in silence for a few moments, fuming at him. He was wise enough not to laugh out loud, and he came over to take out the little box she hadn't touched and open it for her. It was filled with parchment and maps, as well as a few of the smaller, more delicate tools of a navigator. He answered her questions and then put it back, asking her if she wanted to re-stow his coat or if she was more inclined to keep wearing it (an option he seemed entirely too happy for her to do,) and then she made a joke about junk in his trunk that he didn't need to understand for them to become quickly uninterested in anything but each other for the rest of the night.

The third day made them both realize that the few things they had, even combined, were no match for the vast emptiness of the house. The Dark Swan had been entirely conservative in her decorating habits, and what few paintings she had scattered about the place had been taken down with mutual agreement and disposed of alongside the dreamcatchers. And so now they had a large, comfortable, decorationless house and almost nothing to fill it with. They both tried their best to spread things out, but the two of them barely had enough belongings to fill up the bedroom. In the dresser, their clothes took up two drawers each; after deliberation, Killian decided to hang up his old coat in the closet in an attempt to make it less empty, and Emma hung up her red one next to it––right before having to take it down because Regina was having a quarrel with Robin and needed a cooldown speech before she scorched something. Killian and Emma left for the station to rendezvous with her parents, son and not-exactly-step-parents and track Regina down, only to discover that she was already in the process of making up with Robin and had simply talked too harshly to Grumpy, who had naturally assumed that she was on the path of evil once more and summoned the entirety of Clan Charming to the scene for nothing at all. The lot of them had a quick lunch at Granny's to make sure everything was well, which naturally turned into Snow grilling Killian and Emma on the progress they had made on their house. At the mere hint of their dilemma, Snow had excitedly proclaimed that the only thing to do was to go shopping––no, better, to throw a _housewarming ball!_ They could invite Cinderella and Aurora and Philip and Ariel and Guinevere, and they could ask Lilly and Maleficent too, and wouldn't that be amazing and fun? Regina stepped in to save them before Snow could go on, offering to join a shopping trip to whatever Storybrooke's equivalent of an IKEA was to thoroughly dispel the need for such a party. From behind her mother's shoulder, Emma mouthed ' _thank you.'_

That night, in between teaching Killian how the stove worked and learning a plethora of salted curses, Emma was made aware that even though Killian himself didn't own a great deal of personal items, there were several things on his ship that he could bring over to help fill up the house––namely a cannon or two, to fight off whatever the bloody hell a "housewarming" was. Emma laughed and shrugged it off nonchalantly, assuming it to be a joke.

Until she came home on the fourth day to find not one, not two, but _four_ cannons in their front lawn, pointed towards the street and a grim-faced Killian carrying crates of power and cannonballs into the house.


	2. Treasure

They didn't go underneath the stairs anymore. They had taken the lock off of the door and dispelled the residual dark magic upon moving in, but other than that, they left to door alone; there were too many memories down that tunnel, more for Emma than Killian but hollow all the same. And unlike the dreamcatchers, they couldn't throw out the Stone of Excalibur because it was rooted to the ground, gathering dust in the dark. Emma didn't touch the door anymore, didn't even look at it. There was no reason to, with the rest of the house to occupy her and the mysterious new dragon in town that was neither Maleficent nor Lilly. For all the danger she faced, she usually managed a somewhat steady routine of work and rest, and Killian always managed to carve out little moments of serenity and calm here and there. There was no need to add another layer of drama.

So when she first heard the sound of a door opening and closing downstairs, she didn't have the energy to get out of bed and investigate. It wasn't unusual for Killian to get up early (he was a sailor by trade, after all) and to move around the house before Emma managed to kick herself out of bed, and it wasn't unusual for him to use that time to continue their never ending quest to renovate the house. Sometimes she would come down to find a new rug or end table, and had once walked down the stairs to be greeted by her boyfriend trying to secure two crossed swords to the wall. All in all, it wasn't unusual for Killian to be downstairs in the early morning.

But it _was_ unusual for him to open doors.

The first time, Emma just dismissed it and went back to sleep. There was more than one door down there; he could be anywhere in the house. And then she woke up at a reasonable hour to the smell of fish being cooked by a somewhat out-of-breath Killian, at which point their morning transitioned relatively normally into a full day of dragon hunting.

The second time was on her day off. Killian had untangled himself from her long ago, leaving her alone with their glorious new TV and unrestricted access to Netflix that was in just the right place for her to not have to get up. In fact, the hardest task she had to accomplish was figuring out how to get the remote without leaving behind the comforter, then having to readjust the comforter when she got back to bed. Dexter was her poison of choice these days (not that she had very many of "these days") and it was her day off, she was in bed and she didn't have to go _anywhere._

And then she heard it again. A door inside the house being opened and propped in place, followed by familiar footsteps in and out.

Emma shook her head. Surely it was the bathroom. Killian didn't have any more business with _that_ door than she did. It didn't last very long, whatever it was, and soon enough he was coming back upstairs with some grapes to settle in beside her and watch the "strangest occupation I've ever seen."

The third time was undeniable. She came home, stepped into the house and was greeted by the sight of the door under the stairs standing wide open, held in place by a chair. For a moment, all she could do was stare and listen to the dull echoes of movement curling up from the deeper bowels of the tunnel. He wasn't… he _couldn't_ have… why was he down there?

When she heard him begin to come back up, Emma quickly stepped back out of the house, closed the door and loudly pretended to have trouble with the lock; she didn't know why, but she didn't want Killian to know that she had seen the open gap under the stairs.

Killian opened the door after a few moments, smiling and kissing her hello. She kissed him back and stepped inside, fully expecting and dreading that he had closed the door beneath the stairs. But he had changed nothing; the infernal door remained propped open and gaping, and Killian welcomed her home as if nothing was awry.

"Something wrong, love?" he asked as she stepped into the kitchen so she wouldn't have to look at it.

"Nothing." She shook her head a little too emphatically and grabbed a handful of crackers. "Long day, that's all. Lilly's frustrated, and you know how hard that can be to deal with."

He tilted his head, clearly unconvinced. "Aye, I do."

"I'm just, uh, going to go lay down. Upstairs." She all but sprinted up to the bedroom..

"Anything I can help with, love?" he called after her.

"No thanks!"

He could tell that something was off for the rest of the night, but he didn't push her to tell him. He just finished up whatever he was doing behind that door and came up to join her, armed with hot cocoa and grilled cheese. He stayed just a little closer that night, held on just a little longer, but didn't try to keep her in place when she inevitably got up to put the dishes downstairs.

"Would you like help?"

Emma shook her head. "It's just a plate and a cup. I'll use the dishwasher."

Killian grimaced. "That infernal roaring machine? Are you sure that's safe?"

She bit back a snort. "Yes, twenty-first century man. You don't have to worry, I won't let it eat me."

But when she went downstairs, the first thing she passed was the door. It was closed now, and the chair was back where it was supposed to be, but it still gave Emma pause.

What was Killian doing in there? As always, the first thing her mind did was race to the worst-case scenarios. Swords and daggers. Whispers and magic. Nimue and Merlin.

No. If anything like that was going on, she would know. Whatever Killian was doing, there was no way it was nefarious. Emma squared herself and continued to the kitchen to put the cup and plate in the dishwasher.

But what if he didn't know what he was doing? What if those infernal whispers were getting to him, making him do things he wouldn't normally do? It wouldn't be his fault, it couldn't be his fault, but what if something was wrong, what if magic was back inside him, what if what if what if…

The whirring of the dishwasher was eating at her awareness, until she was jolted into realizing that she had walked to the door and was already turning the handle.

What if it was nothing? What if it was a surprise for her and Killian would be hurt that she wasn't trusting him?

What if it was worse? What if something was hurting him and he needed help?

Was she willing to take that chance?

She opened the door and stepped into the dark throat of the tunnel. The cold air began pressing upon her almost immediately, peeling off the stone and lacing through her clothes until she couldn't help a stray shiver. Had it always been this cold down here, or had she just never come down this path since defeating the darkness?

The dim light of everburning torches greeted her when the tunnel opened into the round hollow of the cave. She didn't know what she had expected to find––dark magic? Spellbooks? Nothing at all?––but it was definitely not what she actually found.

Boxes. Crates. Trunks. Chests. All shapes and sizes, piled in the center of the room neatly around the Stone of Excalibur. They were stacked and settled against one another to minimize the space they took up, allowing a wide path around all sides. They were all worn and wooden, and a quick survey of the air around them revealed no booby traps, nor any magical properties at all save for the low hum of the Stone. The containers were entirely mundane, along with whatever the held.

Emma approached cautiously and lay a careful finger on the closest crate. It did nothing. The wood was rough but competently smoothed, at least to the point that she didn't get any splinters. Another check to make sure that nothing about the box itself was inherently strange, and then she lifted the lid and peered inside.

… Silk?

Yes, silk. Bolts and bolts of it in a myriad of colors and patterns filled up the crate, much softer against her hands. Emma blinked uncomprehendingly, closed the lid and move to another one, a darker chest with iron fittings.

Upon opening this lid, Emma was assaulted by a sudden gust of spice-laden air. A thick, fiery combination of scents hit the roof of her mouth, drawing out a cough; what the hell was in this? There were smaller boxes and pouches and parcels crammed into the crate, labeled in Killian's unmistakable looping cursive. _Cardamom. Ginger. Tumeric. Saffron._ More names that Emma had never seen before. She slammed the lid closed and turned away, taking a few moments to breathe in unspiced air.

Silk and kitchen seasonings. Two things that Emma would have never thought to associate Killian with in a million years. What else was he hiding down here?

The next chest she investigated was entirely filled with bags of light pink crystals, which a closer examination revealed to be salt. Killian was a pirate. What the hell did he need bags of salt for when he lived on the ocean? Even more bizarre was the box she opened after that, which was filled to the brim with flat, palm-sized scales that were too small for a dragon and too large for a lizard. There was also a box filled entirely with silver platters, cups and candlesticks, and another Emma was shocked to find stuffed with ball gowns and tunics and dance shoes of all levels of decadence.

"Emma?" The stairs above her creaked with footsteps. "You alright, love?"

She heard him pause at the foot of the stairs, spot the open door and then step into the tunnel, boots thudding against the stone floor. Emma couldn't move, and even if she could where would she _go?_ There was no way out, and so she stood, transfixed, staring dumbly at the dark hole of the tunnel until Killian made his way through.

He stopped dead when he saw her, her fingers laced in a sky-blue gown, and for a moment the two of them just gawked at each other.

It was Killian who managed to break the silence first. "Do you want that?"

Emma blinked, not sure she'd heard right. "What?"

"That gown. Do you want it?"

She opened her mouth, closed it, looked at the gown, then back at Killian. "Do I want this?"

"Aye. You can have it, if you fancy." He grinned. "It'd hardly fit _me,_ shoulders like these." A playful wink.

"You…" She looked at the gown. "This…" She looked at the pile of boxes, "What _is_ this, Killian?"

Killian glanced at the subject of her confusion. "This? Ah, sorry, should've asked first. Ran out of space in the big room outside."

"The big room outside? You mean the garage?"

"The garage, aye. And you never come down here, so I presumed you wouldn't be using the area for anything. That's the last of it, though; most of it's in the _garage."_

"It?" Emma asked. "What is _it,_ Killian?"

He blinked and looked around at _it._ A moment's confusion, and then his cheeks were coloring and he was looking down at the floor sheepishly.

"This all, it's…" he trailed off mumbling.

"What?"

"It's my treasure, love."

"Your _treasure?"_

He nodded, squaring his shoulders and looking back up at her. "Aye, treasure. Since I'm no longer sleeping on the Rodger, it seemed only wise to move it all to a place I could more easily keep guard. Some of my crew still lives around the docks, and they'd have no qualms about sneaking aboard an unmanned ship and stealing her cargo." He shrugged. "I know it's taking up space, love. Now that it's all here, I'll work on sorting it out and fencing it off; I hardly think either of us have much use for most of it."

"But… _treasure?"_ Emma looked at the gown in her hands, then at the containers surrounding her. "But isn't treasure supposed to be, like, gold and jewels and silver and everything, and you're supposed to put it in a chest and bury it?"

Killian's brow knit in bemusement. "Bury it? I like a little gold and silver as much as the next sailor, but it hardly does any good if it's buried." He tilted his head. "But if you want gold and silver, love, I've got bits of that, too."

"But all of this," she gestured frantically at the entirety of the cave. "Spices, candlesticks, _ballgowns_ for Pete's sake. What do you even _do_ with it?"

Killian laughed. "Sell it, usually. Pirate. Ships don't usually make a habit of carrying around gold and silver, save if you're lucky enough to nab a travelling noblewoman or lord. But so long as you know who'd pay for a bit of silk or viper scales, you've got your own weight in doubloons." He ran a hand through his hair, "Though I'll admit it's a bit difficult to find such people in Storybrooke."

"So it's just… here. All your treasure. In the basement."

"Aye, and the garage."

"That's a _lot_ of treasure _._ "

A low smirk. "I'm a damn good pirate."

"Yeah." Something else was pooling in her stomach at the sight of that smirk, something that was going to end the conversation before she had a chance to properly absorb what she had just learned. Emma stood. "So, how much space is actually left in the garage?"

"Should I show you?" He bit his lip suggestively. "There are plenty of interesting things to look at."

Emma giggled––actually _giggled––_ at the question, the innuendo wrapped inside, and in simple, immature giddiness at the objective absurdity of getting to go look at real-life freaking _pirate treasure,_ because that was just the kind of live she lived nowadays. Killian's attempts to lure her into banter were abandoned when she dropped what she was doing and leaped forward to wrap him in a hug.

"I love you, pirate."

She felt him smile into her hair. "I love you, Swan."

"Can I keep the dress?"

"Of course."


	3. Henry

Alright, so this one's a bit heavier than the usual fare, but I had an idea and just wanted to get it out. Still fluff, with a bit of hurt/comfort, and Henry being Henry.

* * *

Henry's presence isn't so much an addition to the house as much as it is a simple rearranging of lives that were already woven too tightly to unravel. The Hook-Emma-Henry dynamic has always existed in some form or another, since before Henry and Hook had even met; Hook had impacted Henry's life the moment he had rolled out from under a pile of Cora's corpses and followed a misplaced mother up a beanstalk. Many things had happened since then, on the outside world and the inside world, but the passage of time had only served to thread the three of them closer together, making them only more helplessly entangled with every passing day into the confused mess of a tapestry that was the Storybrooke family tree.

Henry, as always, was the focal point of those threads. He was the single, indomitable light that all the Charmings oriented themselves to, and since the Charmings were the ones in control of the town then it was fairly easy to see the rest of their isolated little kingdom doing the same.

Not that Henry himself ever seemed to notice.

Hook had had a soft spot for the boy for years. It hadn't been immediate; in the beginning, he only held interest because he was Emma's son, back in a time when that information granted a much different Hook leverage over a much different Emma.

 _(Who's Henry's father?)_

 _(Neal.)_

 _(Baelfire?)_

Neverland had changed everything. It was all accidents and sidestepping and one time things, when the weight of _what could be_ was pushed aside for later, once Henry was safe and theirs again; Neverland had been a beginning for Emma and Hook, and it had been a continuation for Hook and Neal. Centuries of history and bitter regret was put on hold, all for the sake of the boy; whatever the lot of them needed to address, they could do it once Pan was dead.

 _(He's got his father's eyes.)_

 _(Yeah.)_

 _(There's a lot of Baelfire in him, Swan.)_

 _(Ha! Don't I know it.)_

While others mourned his death on the outside, the two of them mourned it on the inside. Her, grieving over the first person who had ever held her happiness over their own. Him, regretting the lost, tattered boy he had failed and the amends he would never get to make. In this, they were silently conscious of each other's preference to wallow in their own memories without anyone else's interference, and in this they each respected the wishes for solitude that the other didn't have to voice.

In this, they ceased to be Hook and Swan and turned into just Killian and Emma, regretful people that would never be quite the same without _him_.

She'd had her suspicions when he'd volunteered to take Henry sailing, just to clear the boy's head and distract him from the all-too-unrealistic realities of Storybrooke while Emma and the others continued to hunt down the perpetrator of the second curse. They weren't bad suspicions of his feelings on the matter, they were just… wondering.

When she picked Henry up, her son was smiling and laughing like Killian had just told him the funniest joke in the world. Killian seemed to know Henry's sense of humor without having to figure it out; he navigated the boy's banter like a familiar ocean, and Henry was none the wiser. When he jogged cheerfully to her car, Emma caught Killian's eyes following her son, all humor gone and replaced with something she recognized all too well: regret.

Killian noticed her watching him. Neither of them said anything. Neither of them needed to.

Even now, after everything that lay in their past, Emma wondered if Henry would ever know the full depth of Killian's care for him. Heck, Emma wondered if _she_ would ever know; history with Neal was something Killian didn't volunteer, and it wasn't something Emma asked after. He didn't ask after her history with him, either, but that worked out alright; Neal and Baelfire might have had the same origin, but Killian could never truly know the petty New York thief, and Emma could never truly know the lost boy who almost became a pirate.

She finds a picture of him, buried somewhere in her box of knick knacks. It isn't her special, personal one from years ago, inside the coffee shop photo booth; this one is new, from Storybrooke. It's a postcard of Neal and Henry together at Granny's, grinning over fries and hot cocoa, because of course that was still Neal's drink of choice after ten years. She leaves the picture on her bedside before leaving for the morning, and when she comes back home late that night the picture is nowhere to be found. Its absence clutches at her heart unexpectedly, and she begins tearing through the house with a sudden, fearful frenzy that makes tears come to her eyes––until she finds Killian in the living room, the picture in hand, now protected inside a glass and wood picture frame, adjusting it on the mantlepiece.

"Was planning the frame for something else," he admits when he sees her. "But this is more important."

She joins him and rests her head against his shoulder, and for a long moment the two of them stand there, looking at the frozen image of an older, wearier man that had refused to let the world stop him from smiling, even after all the hell it had managed to put him through. Ten years was a long time. Two hundred years, even longer. Despite those rosy memories embedded in their pasts and hearts, neither of them had ever gotten the chance to truly know the man he had ended up becoming.

They both regret it in silence.

She asks him that question she's never gotten the courage to, because now it just seems like the right thing to ask.

 _(How did you meet him?)_

 _(Never told you the story?)_

 _(Bits and pieces. Will you tell me the whole thing?)_

 _(... We were both lost.)_

They sit, and he talks, and she listens, and the tale he spins makes her wonder all the more. Through Killian's eyes, it's as if she meets Neal for the first time all over again, as the scared boy dropped into the ocean by a shadow. Soon enough they become aware of Henry at the hallway, hair wet and pyjamas fresh out of the laundry. They had thought he was getting his new room set up, but no, he's been drawn down by the story.

Killian starts over for Henry's benefit, and in a rare show of humility, he doesn't embellish––not even on Neal's parts. There are no adventures or dangerous swordfights, no threats or daring escapes; there's just a boy and a pirate, both in pain, making the best of what they can. It's the first time Killian's ever told Henry about Milah, and Henry takes it all in stride; there are no judgements when the story ends. These days, the three of them rarely bother to judge anything anymore.

Then Henry turns right around and asks Emma for how _she_ met Neal. He's heard the story before, but he wants to hear it again, and now Killian's curious, too. _(Only fair, Swan.)_ She tells them the tale that's been worn fondly into her mind after years and years of mulling it over, for better or for worse, and it's nearly as unexciting as Killians; two lost souls, stealing a car together _(Ha! Knew he'd always have a knack for pirating!)_ joined by coincidence, almost ready to love until bad luck and bad decisions got in the way. A pair of thieves that looked for Tallahasse in a beat-up yellow Bug, but never managed to find it.

Hook puts the pieces together immediately, and points outside with startled eyes. _(That vessel out there?)_

 _(The same.)_

 _(You still possess the carriage you and Baelfire commandeered.)_

 _(It's legal now!)_

Killian's grinning, and for a moment Emma catches sight of something she's never seen in him before when they're talking about Neal: Killian is proud. Of Neal. For stealing a car.

Emma's life is so weird.

Nevertheless, the story comes to a close, and there is a sense of peace that settles over the room; they've all learned something new tonight, and it only takes a few moments of silence for Henry to demand that Killian listen to That One Song. Emma laughs and digs into her pocket for her iPod––they haven't gotten a sound system yet––and pushes the earbuds into Killian's head. He's not particularly fond of the mechanism, but he settles down almost immediately when she presses play and the music begins.

 _(Looking through the window above, it's like a story of love…)_

Killian becomes still on the couch as the music plays, and so Emma tells Henry that it's way too late for him to be up, and has he brushed his teeth yet? Henry laughs and reminds her of all those times he's stayed up _way_ later than this, but doesn't argue––he's a hero in his own right now, and he's been on his own in dangerous situations, and he's even pulled all-nighters. And with all of those things comes the natural acceptance of bedtimes; since he is well acquainted with the sleeplessness heroism can require, he, like all of the Charmings, treasures every day he can manage a full night's rest.

She comes up to check his room and make sure he has everything he needs, despite Henry's manly frown and insistence that he knows what he needs, he can take care of himself, Mom, he's a teenager! And just because he says that, Emma makes a point to hug him, immobilise his arms and pepper him with kisses until he's red in the face and thoroughly embarrassed. He sticks to his stubborn pride when she finally lets him go, feathers ruffled, and the sight of him makes her smile. They exchange I Love Yous and she lets him be, grinning all the way downstairs.

Killian's still on the couch, smiling softly as the song reaches a close. She sits down next to him, and when it's done she take one of the earbuds and puts it in her own ear, starts the song over, and they listen to it together.

They aren't expecting to fall asleep on the couch that way, but suddenly it's morning and they can hear Henry making his way about the kitchen as quietly as he can. It's a Saturday, and tonight he'll be sleeping at David and Mary-Margaret's––with a grand total of three homes to move between, there's still a lot to be figured out in regards to who gets Henry when. But that's something they'll figure out with time, because no one's in a hurry; in regards to family, everything is more or less as it should be. They make a breakfast out of poptarts because they're all feeling lazy.

From that day forward, Emma notices that Killian had a much greater level of respect for her car.


End file.
